If you were a Tianjin resident, no matter fromwhere you start, you would discover a street cornergreenery space of more than 1,000 squaremeters within 500 meters, a large or mediumsizedpublic greenery area of 5,000 to 10,000square meters within 1 kilometer, a district-levelpark within 3 kilometers, and a municipal parkor a large scenic area within 10 kilometers.

This scenario will become reality by the end of2008. For Tianjin, the extra large veteran industrialcity in North China, city beautification andimprovement is a renewed dream along withthe fast-developing economy.

As a city of 600-year history, the greenery coveragelevel of Tianjin is relatively low. Up to theend of 2002, the total area of urban greenerycoverage had hit 101 million square meters,with park green space area reaching 34.66 millionsquare meters. Forestation rate, greenerycoverage rate and per capita park green spacearea were 27.30 percent, 19.22 percent and 5.63square meters respectively, which ranked themedium or low level among capitals of provincesin China.

Since 2003, the pace of forestation was significantlyaccelerated. Up to 2005, 58.26 millionsquare meters of trees had been planted in 3years. After that, there have been more than 20million square meters of greenery area built everyyear and the objective for 2008 is 26 millionsquare meters. The indicators of city forestationbasically achieve the national garden cityassessment standards.

According to statistics of Tianjin gardens departments,in recent five years, the total area ofnew greenery space built in Tianjin has reached130 million square meters, exceeding the totalarea of greenery construction in Tianjin in theprevious 50 years.

By the end of 2007, the area of urban greenspace had reached 190 million square meters.Except the area for various constructions,the greenery area in gardens was 47.4 millionsquare meters. Within completed areas, forestationcoverage rate was 37.5 percent, withgreenery coverage rate 29.5 percent, and perperson park greenery space 7 square meters.

The city has started to improve its appearancein a large scale. In the past 5 years, TianjinGardens Bureau has implemented afforestedlandscape improvement and reconstruction on11 level-2 rivers with the total length of morethan 80 kilometers in the downtown of the cityand newly added greenery space of more than4 million square meters. It also organized andimplemented forestation projects supporting33 freeway, 6 entrances to the city and 6 largescaleintersections. Meanwhile the Bureau builtforestation shelter belts of 32 meters on bothsides of 6 railways in the city. The total lengthof these projects extends more than 70 kilometers,with new greenery space of more than5 million square meters. In 2007, Tianjin afforestedalong another 8 city entrance roads, 12city entrance streets, 47 Olympic streets, and17 pieces of key areas, with newly added greeneryareas reaching 13 million square meters.

According to Tianjin Gardens Bureau, Tianjinpays much attention on the construction ofurban ecological greenery space and the conservationof ecological separation area. It haddeveloped 8 large-scale scenic areas with a totalarea of more than 14 million square metersinto urban nature reservations and ecologicalseparation zones and gave them special protectionto form ecological corridor of Tianjintogether with green belt in outer ring road.In addition, there are 8 districts and counties buildingup forest parks and ecological greenery spacewith a total area of 16 million square meters.

Tianjin combines old city reconstruction andimprovement with forestation efforts. In theprojects concerning the reconstruction of dangerousshabby cottages and re-development ofcity downtown area and the upgrading of ageingresidential areas, Tianjin government focuson addition and improvement of former urbangreenery spaces. In the past years, the greeneryarea in new residential areas has exceeded6.55 million square meters, and subsidiarygreenery space of newly built enterprises andinstitutions has reached 14.34 million squaremeters. Temporary greenery area was alsoadded to the idle land parcels after relocation.